


The Bitter and the Sweet

by AceQueenKing



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Rescue Missions, Rivendell | Imladris, Wardrobe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Susan wanders into Rivendell when she opens the door to Narnia after The Accident. It may not where she expected to end up, but not all who wander are lost.





	The Bitter and the Sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



Susan could not say what had caused her to open the wardrobe after The Accident.

That was the way it was to her, always; _The Accident_. She had had to identify them all, little Lucy and Peter and Edmund. She could still see The Accident when she closed her eyes. Could still see the way their items had been tossed from point to point. Could still see their broken bodies tossed asunder.

She should have never volunteered to try to find them. She had thought she could handle it. Susan, who had spent many years as a Queen of Narnia, had little fear of battle. She had seen people who were dead and injured before. But she had not seen an accident, not up close, and that caused her to quake when she did. Accidents were a far worse thing than wars; there were no enemies to hate, no Aslan to bring the dead to life. It had never quite hit her that her sisters and brothers could die, and could die in such a pointless way. 

For a long time when she closed her eyes, she saw them as she found them: thrown around their cabin, their eyes closed like they were sleeping.

Somehow she had survived The Accident, and the War before it, too. And somehow, so had the wardrobe. She ran a hand down its smooth surface. She'd been tempted, during the Blitz, to hide in it, but had been afraid too, too worried about what had lain beneath. After the Accident, the fear had turned into downright terror.

She had not returned to Narnia since… _since_. She had been afraid; half afraid that she would find her sister and brothers there, Eternal Kings and Queens in Aslan's Glory that she had been cleft from as easily as hair off a donkey; the other half afraid that they would not be there, that there were limits even unto Aslan's power. She could not say from day to day which was the worst fear, only that they were both there and whirled around her, a cacophony of _what ifs_ and _if thens_. She'd had it sealed up, packed back up and run into the attic as if willing the German planes to take it. She’d told Peter once that they’d dreamed up Narnia. She’d known perfectly well they hadn’t, but couldn't reconcile _Susan the Woman_ with _Susan the Queen._

But now she was here. It had been so long since she had seen it. She had been a child, once, inside the wardrobe; then she had been a woman, a queen, and a long-lived adventurer. And then she had been thrown out again, a woman-child left to try to make her place in the world. The others all longed for Narnia, but Susan had found the idea of the Wardrobe's power troubling. It was hard for her to return. There was still something magical about it; a heat that pulsed against her fingers.

Susan trembled, then reached for the handle. She could never afterward say what power had come over to make her yank open the door. Whatever it was, it coursed through her, powerful and annihilating all her fears.

There was a valley of flowers on the other side. Bright black-eyed susans and geraniums and the scent of honeysuckle that had left its scent on all her earliest memories lay around her. She walked through without even thinking about the dangers of it and breathed deeply.

If she closed her eyes she could imagine Peter here, still; chasing him around the garden like when they were children, before Edmund and Lucy. She listened for him, and there was silence, and that broke her heart. Still, it was a lovely tableau, and she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Aslan had sought her out, after all this time. Perhaps this was a gift.

She closed her eyes and breathed deep, then walked further into the garden. It was elaborate; honeysuckle and primrose danced upon the air, with lily of the valley under her feet. There was an elaborate stone wall that looked to be part of a castle; it had high walls covered partially by high ivy, with a bright door in the middle. It looked so close to Lucy’s, once, that her heart caught in her throat.

“Lucy?” She said, louder than she perhaps should. “Sister?”

The castle was still and Susan wondered which was worse: going to the castle to see a sister who’d abandoned their real world for the fantastic one, or to go into a castle clad in mourning and silence for a queen who’d never return to her realm.

Still, she was here. And Susan, who could not explain why she had come here, knew she would likely never get the courage to return to this place. And with that in mind, Susan turned the doorknob.

A woman was sitting on a chair near the door, with a circlet hanging over long black hair that reminded of her mother. Her face, however, was more severe - long, elongated features, almost elfin, Susan thought. The woman stood, raising a bow, and Susan’s eyes widened as the movement revealed her ears - long and pointed. _An elf._

“Oh, I’m - I’m sorry,” she mumbled, feeling foolish. “I’m so - so - sorry, I thought - “ She raised up her hands, alarmed. She’d known how to shoot a bow in her other life and could tell from this woman’s hands that she, too, was well-experienced with a bow and quiver. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. Please forgive my intrusion.”

“Who are you?” The elf-queen said. “Are you a friend to Rivendell?”

“I’m Susan,” she answered carefully, certain that she had never heard of Rivendell, not even amongst the many stars in Aslan’s sky. “And I’m - well, I’m not sure where I am, but I’m not an enemy. I thought,” she swallowed, then laughed, a tiny nervous tic Susan the Woman had that Susan the Queen had not. “I thought this - that I might find my sister here.”

“Your sister?” The woman lowered her bow, placing the arrow back into her quiver. “I am Arwen Undómiel of Rivendell. Now, your sister - what is her name? I’m well familiar with all who dwell here.”

She took a few steps forward and Susan tried to stand straighter, her reflexive memory of Queendom forcing her posture into a position befitting royalty. “Lucy, of Narnia. She…” She started to say _was_ , but that didn’t feel right, but neither did _is._ Susan simply stood there, her eyes downcast, and sucked in a breath.

Arwen pressed her hand upon her shoulder. The touch was kind, and when she looked up, Arwen smiled with all the understanding in the world. She knew, immediately, that Arwen must also have siblings.

“A queen of Narnia,” Susan spit out, avoiding the problem of which verb tense to use. “She’s about my height but has lighter hair. And she has a kind expression, always. And of all of us, she is by far the most magical of the kings and queens of Narnia.”

“I’m afraid I do not know her,” Arwen said slowly, “nor have I heard of this Narnia.”

“Oh. Well…” Susan scratched at her hair, unsure of what to say. “I came here through erm, magic, and…” She realized with a rather heavy heart that the truth was unbelievable. I came here through a magic door in my bureau had not been a story she’d found believable as a child. As an adult, it was even more obviously an untruth.

“Magic?” The woman’s eyes lit up, like she’d said something rare and astounding. “You are not an elf, you are… _ainur_? From across the undying sea?”

“I’m afraid I don’t…” She shook her head. “I’m not familiar with those terms. I come from London and…from Narnia. I…was a friend of Aslan, the lion.” She shook her head and wondered: was this a final cruelty? Had Aslan deserted her, banished her far from his realm? She no longer felt any right to say Aslan was her friend and protector. It had been many years since she had admitted his existence, even to herself.

“Aslan,” Arwen said, softly; she did not understand, that was obvious. Her face was the very image of puzzlement. “I am not familiar with that name, but the lion-spirits…that I have known. We call them the  _rhui_.” She reached out a hand and smoothed Susan’s hair in a move that was so maternal it made Susan long for her own mother.

“If your sister is a servant of one of the _rhui_ then she is quite powerful.” Arwen darted her eyes from side to side, then leaned closer, as if afraid of anyone overhearing them...despite the fact that they had been undisturbed for the entirety of Susan’s thus short visit.

“My father has the gift of foresight,” Arwen said, looking at her quite seriously. Susan opened her mouth to ask why Arwen was telling her this. Before she could get the words out, though, another thought occurred. Believing in seeing the future was no less preposterous on the surface than the resurrection of a gigantic lion. If Arwen had known of Aslan, even under a different name, then perhaps Susan was not quite so forsaken as she had feared. Arwen grabbed her hand. “A great dark cloud is coming upon this land. Even as we speak, my father is taking up the collection of heroes to vanquish this evil.”

“Oh, I - “ Susan felt an odd sense of deja vu and remembered Jadis, and snow, and cold. She shivered despite herself, but Arwen took no notice, her eyes burning like a zealot.

“Join us. You can help us battle the darkness, Sauron, and we will talk to him about your siblings. My father will - my father can find anyone.” She gripped Susan’s hand harder, and Susan blushed, unused to being wanted so desperately. “Please,” Arwen said softly, almost-desperate. “ _Please_.”

“I - I can just shoot a bow,” she said, feeling deeply self-conscious. Arwen smiled and shook her head.

“If you are a servant of the _rhui_ , then a bow will do.” She smiled and tugged Susan toward the door, but before she could open it a page came in. This was a younger elf, panicked and winded.

“My lady!” The page whispered, then gathered in a wide breath of air. “Aragorn rides for Rivendell! He is bringing the Bearer but they’ve been ambushed. _Nazgûl,_ ” the page said in a hissed whisper, as if this explained everything.

“Ambushed?” Susan watched as Arwen’s entire body tensed, becoming that of a warrior queen: her back straighter, her eyes brighter. She was already grabbing at her arrows, and for the first time Susan noticed a sword slung across her back. “Where?”

“Five miles, north!” the page all but shouted.

Arwen turned back to Susan. “Can you ride?”

“A horse?” She thought back thousands of years of a different life and remembered, then, how to hold the reins. “I can.”

“Then come.” She tossed Susan her quiver and bows, and Susan threw the quiver on their back. She closed her eyes and tried to silence any discomfort in her heart. If she had been brought here, she had been brought here for a reason. She had denied Narnia long enough.

She stepped onto the horse with nearly a centuries’ grace and gripped her arrow in her hands.

“You ride well!” Arwen yelled, and then they were off, and Susan lost herself in the connection between horse and rider. Her heart beat with the horse’s heart; her hands pulled lightly on the reins. She raced through the fields, following Arwen across field and forest so near yet so distant yet so strangely familiar looking.

She saw it before Arwen did. She could not say why except that she sensed it somehow, a growing cold that lingered and made her hands and heart hurt. “Is that it? The _Nazgûl?_ ”

“Yes!” Arwen yelled and ran forward, her eyes on the _Nazgûl's_ prey, a small human creature with hairy feet that reminded her of nothing so much as Mr. Tumnus. “Cover me!”

Susan pulled a bow from the quiver and nocked it, aiming toward the _Nazgûl._ She saw Arwen, and the little Tumnus-man, and several companions around. She closed her eyes, aimed for the cold, the disease, and shot true.

She took a deep breath and aimed again. Perhaps it was not quite Jadis, and perhaps she was no longer a queen, but she was a warrior still, and perhaps, if she was very lucky, still a sister.

 _For Edmund,_ she thought and shot again at the disgusting creature. It was on the defensive now, shrieking between her arrows and Arwen’s sword. _For Peter_ , she whispered, and shot again; this one went into its shoulder with a definitive shriek. _And for Lucy_ , she thought, and let it fly. Five shots, five hits. Arwen grabbed the injured man and his companions fled, running with the horses. One, a large man, swung up behind Arwen and placed his hands on her hips with the ease of a lover. Three others, small men themselves, followed, and Susan slowed her horse to allow them to climb on.

“Oh, hullo!” One of them said. “I’m Merry. Who are you?”

“My name is Susan,” she said and willed the horse to go faster, following Arwen. “Of Narnia.”

“Very glad to meet you.” Said the other. “I’m Pippin. And this fellow in the back’s Sam.”

“Really appreciate the rescue, miss,” Sam said quietly. Sam made her hurt to look at, so similar to Edmund with his mop of dark blond hair. The three held onto her, and she rode toward Arwen, toward Rivendell, and, if she was lucky, toward home.

Susan began to feel as if perhaps this, too, was the will of Aslan and felt her spirits buoyed. It was not quite home, and not quite happy, but Susan would fight here. If Arwen's father had such an amazing gift of foresight, then all Susan needed to do was ask him for the way home.

 _I'm coming_ , she thought, leaning into the saddle. _I'm coming._


End file.
